The Week In... Nursing + Healthcare (30/03-03/04)

Cabin crew are drafted in to help at the new Nightingale hospital, 20,000 former NHS staff return to fight the virus, hospitals are urged to use lab space to test self-isolating NHS staff in England, and a simple new blood test is reported to be able to check for more than 50 types of cancers.

The NHS will draw on airline cabin crews to help staff the new Nightingale hospitals that are being constructed to cope with the wave of patients expected to need critical care as the coronavirus outbreak unfolds.

Britain’s first coronavirus field hospital will treat up to 4,000 previously fit and healthy people struck down by Covid-19 once it opens, with sicker patients who are more likely to die being cared for in normal NHS hospitals.